PORTLAND, Ore.—With the gym at near capacity, the
Concordia men's basketball team came out victorious over cross-town
rival Warner Pacific College with a 97-72 win in front of its home crowd
on Saturday night.

In a battle of teams tied for second place in the CCC standings, the win
moved No. 24-ranked Concordia (18-4, 7-3 CCC) into sole possession of
second place behind CCC leading College of Idaho (18-5, 9-2 CCC). The
result also represented CU head coach Brad Barbaricks's 300th career
victory and the first win against the Knights since Jan. 9, 2009,
breaking a 10-game losing streak against WPC.

With the loss, Warner Pacific (12-10, 6-4 CCC) fell to fifth place in
the standings and will face Eastern Oregon in La Grande, Ore., on Jan.
31.

Concordia will look to inch closer to the conference lead as the Cavs
will travel to face No. 14-ranked College of Idaho to face the Yotes
next Friday. Concordia handed C of I one of its two CCC losses this
season with a 95-89 win in Portland on Jan. 4.

With a rowdy crowd in hand, Saturday's game got off to a slow start with
the first points being scored at 18:44 with a layup by CU's Marquis Matthews (Spanaway, Wash./Bethel H.S.). With WPC's first score, Ryan Parks tied the game up while Sean Gaines provided the Knights a brief lead at 4-2.

With one of his four 3-pointers in the game, Willy Ligon (Corona, Calif./Centennial H.S.) quickly snagged the lead back for the home team, a lead it would not surrender en route to the rare rout of the Knights

The lead was extended to 13 (32-19) with a dunk by Thomas Pierce (Gary, Ind./Roosevelt H.S.)
at the 9:11 mark and by shooting a torrid 65.5 percent in the first
half, the Concordia advantage reached a first-half high of 23 points off
a layup by Adam Herman (Vancouver, Wash./Prairie H.S.) with just over two minutes to play.

Early in the second half, Warner Pacific brought the deficit to a
second-half low of 17 points off a jumper by Doug Thomas, but Ligon
retaliated with another 3-pointer to quell the comeback.

Herman led all scorers with 26 points and was nearly perfect from the
floor, hitting 8 of 9 from the floor and from the free throw line. With
12 points on the first half, Herman became the first player in school
history to reach 2,000 career points. Herman, the all-time leading
scorer in school history, ended the night with 2,014 career points.

Two other Cavs finished the game in double digits as Ligon contributed
with 16 points in a starting role and Pierce with 15 points and six
rebounds off the bench.

Parks finished as WPC's top scorers with 16 points while Thomas added 14.